Effects of Caffeine on Peroxynitrite-Mediated DNA Strand Breakage
Pon Velayutham Anandh Babu April 2015 The FASEB Journal vol. 29 no. 1 Supplement LB279
Caffeine is a widely consumed beverage in much of the world. Recent epidemiological studies have demonstrated that coffee consumption is inversely associated with Parkinson's disease. However, the mechanism for this protection is unknown. Oxidative stress has been suggested to play an important role in neuronal degeneration. Peroxynitrite is a strong oxidizing agent that is generated from the bi-radical reaction of nitric oxide and superoxide at a diffusion-limited rate leading to neurotoxicity. Peroxynitrite has been found in various cell types including both neurons and glial cells in the brain of Parkinsonian patients. DNA strand breakage induced by peroxynitrite-mediated oxidative stress has been suggested to be a cause of neurodegenerative disorders. Using phi X-174 plasmid DNA as an in vitro system, this study was undertaken to investigate the effects of caffeine in peroxynitrite-induced DNA strand breaks, a critical event leading to peroxynitrite-elicited cytotoxicity. Incubation of phi X-174 plasmid DNA with the 3-morpholinosydnonimine (SIN-1), a peroxynitrite generator, led to the formation of DNA break in a concentration- and time-dependent fashion. The presence of caffeine at concentrations ranging from 3.2 µM to 3.20mM was found to significantly inhibit SIN-1-induced DNA strand breaks in a concentration-dependent manner. DNA was also incubated with other well-known antioxidants to compare the inhibition of peroxynitrite-induced damage by caffeine. The protective effects of caffeine on peroxynitrite-mediated oxidative DNA damage may shade some light on the mechanism(s) of its neuroprotective activities observed in human clinical trials.